Author: Google News

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is preparing to release a wide-ranging executive order to reduce the role that climate change plays in policy decisions, according to a Trump administration official who reviewed a draft of the order. The move could alter how U.S. agencies weigh regulations on a broad array of industries, from drilling, coal mining and auto manufacturing to refining. The official on Tuesday confirmed a Bloomberg News report that the executive order will instruct the Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies to overhaul their use of the “social cost of carbon,” an Obama-era policy that seeks to quantify potential economic damage from climate change for the purposes of drafting regulation. White House spokeswoman Kelly Love declined to discuss the timing of an executive order on energy. “We have nothing to announce at this time,” she said. Under rules put in by place by former President Barack Obama, the current cost of carbon in policy decisions is $36 per tonne, which will rise to $50 by 2030. The Trump order would direct regulators to use a “discount rate” that would dramatically reduce, or eliminate, that cost. Discount rates are used to come up with a net present value of something whose benefits and costs will be distributed over time. In the case of carbon, the impact of emissions on the earth’s climate can take several years to...

On Saturday, March 12, Representative Steve King of Iowa (R) retweeted a political cartoon championing Dutch politician Geert Wilders. “Wilder understands that culture and demographics are our destiny,” tweeted King. “We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.” Rep. Steve King, who is Euro-American, has since doubled-down on his statements and recently commented that he “meant exactly what he said” when touting European civilization as a “superior civilization.” He also denied that advocating Europeans and Euro-Americans to have more babies was about race. While Rep. King and others pretend that they can avoid talking about race by slyly replacing the word with culture, the concept, meaning, and intent are the same. We need to be clear about what this language means: some of our representatives in U.S. Congress are openly promoting ethnic nationalism and the ideals of “white supremacy.” “I’m a champion for Western civilization” Some of those in U.S. Congress are joining the 45th President in what can only be called the language of white supremacy — the idea that people from Europe, identified racially as “white,” have the greatest civilization and contain cultures that are unmatched by so-called inferior peoples from around the world. 45 and his chief strategist, Steve Bannon, are currently leading the way with these ideals through executive orders that ban immigrants from certain Muslim-majority nations and a massive systematic buildup of institutions...

WASHINGTON — Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) has been widely condemned this week after tweeting on Sunday that “we can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.” Some Republicans, including the office of House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), rebuked the congressman. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a civil rights leader, called the tweet “racist.” But King had a few supporters ― former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, for example, was happy with his comments ― and he didn’t apologize. Instead, he defended his stance, tweeting on Monday a riff on President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan: “Let’s Make Western Civilization Great Again!” This was not terribly surprising, as King has been making similar arguments — and attracting support from white nationalists — for years. The only difference is that there are now people in the White House who share some of his views. Trump, White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon, policy advisers Steve Miller and Sebastian Gorka and national security official Michael Anton have echoed King’s apocalyptic anti-immigration arguments, and they’re advancing policies for which he has long advocated. Neither King’s office nor the White House responded to requests for comment. Tom Williams via Getty Images Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) is interviewed by NBC News in the rotunda of Russell Building on Jan. 3, the first day of the 115th Congress. Bannon used his position as executive chair of Breitbart News to advance an anti-immigrant message. King was a repeat...

Candidate Donald Trump and media magnate Rupert Murdoch (center) at Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeen, Scotland, last June. Michal Wachucik/AFP/Getty Images The Trump era has opened with the promise of a White House foothold for media mogul Rupert Murdoch. It looks to be the kind of warm and solicitous reception in the corridors of presidential power that he has long enjoyed abroad. Murdoch has told close associates that the nation’s 45th president calls to confer frequently — as often as multiple times a week — and that he has visited the White House to meet with Trump more than once. “They have been friends for a long time,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer wrote in an email to NPR. “They speak on occasion as the president does with all his friends.” Murdoch sits atop a twin media empire, made up of 21st Century Fox and News Corp, which together include such properties in the United States as The Wall Street Journal, Fox News, New York Post and more than two dozen local television stations. His interests span journalism, commerce and politics. But Murdoch has repeatedly proved a more pragmatic conservative entrepreneur than pure ideologue. The White House did not respond to requests to elaborate on the nature or content of Murdoch’s conversations with the president. The Trump administration has not yet released any lists of visitors to the...

[embedded content] The White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was repeatedly questioned by an Indian-American woman who accused him of destroying the US while she a took a dig at President Donald Trump. The incident took place at a local Apple store when the woman named Shree Chauhan saw Spicer and started questioning him as she filmed the whole sequence. The video was posted by her on Twitter on Sunday and has gone viral. Reacting to the incident, Spicer, at his daily news conference on Monday, said that the US is a free country and people have the right to act however they want. As per Chauhan’s various social media posts, she was in the store to get her iPhone fixed when she spotted Spicer. She wrote in a post on Medium.com: I realised what an enormous opportunity it was to get answers without the protections normally given to Mr Spicer. I was honestly quite nervous and wanted to come up with more cogent questions, but did not have time to do so. According to the video, she asked Spicer: You know you work for a Fascist, right? Have you helped with the Russia stuff? Have you committed treason too, just like the president? What can you tell me about Russia… and how do you feel about destroying our country, Sean? She said she has lived in Washington DC...

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa speaks during the Freedom Summit, on Jan. 24, 2015, in Des Moines, Iowa. Charlie Neibergall / AP, file “If you go down the road a few generations or maybe centuries with the intermarriage, I’d like to see an America that’s just so homogenous that we look a lot the same,” King added. King has served in Congress since 2003 and has become an influential voice among the conservative House members. He has a history of making controversial statements when it comes to immigration and race. At an appearance on MSNBC during the Republican National Convention last summer, King questioned the contributions non-whites have made to society. In 2013 he said for each undocumented immigrant who becomes a valedictorian, there are 100 that have “calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert.” The Iowa Republican’s latest tweet and subsequent defense were condemned by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House, called on House Speaker Paul Ryan to condemn King’s comments. “Once again, disgusting hatred has been met with deafening silence from Speaker Ryan,” she said in a statement. A spokesperson for Ryan said, “The speaker clearly disagrees and believes America’s long history of inclusiveness is one of its great...

President Trump will formally order the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) this week to review whether one of its car emissions regulations should be scaled back. Trump will make the announcement during a Wednesday trip to Michigan, the center of the domestic auto manufacturing industry, according to two people familiar with the plans. The plan was previously reported Monday by Reuters and the Detroit News. White House press secretary Sean Spicer confirmed Trump’s Detroit trip during a briefing on Monday. He said Trump will “meet with auto executives and workers and manufacturing suppliers, highlighting the need to eliminate burdensome regulations that needlessly hinder meaningful job growth.” According to sources, the order would instruct the EPA to reopen a formal review that the Obama administration completed in January to examine whether the aggressive greenhouse gas emissions standards set in 2012 should continue to be strengthened during the 2022 to 2025 model years, or should be weakened. The auto industry has pushed Trump repeatedly to revise the rules, saying that while it is possible to comply with them, it would be unnecessarily expensive. Automakers also object to the Obama administration closing out the review process in January, when it was scheduled to close in 2018. Trump met with automaker executives in the White House days after the inauguration, saying in part that environmental regulations are “out of control.” “We’re going to make...

By now, it should be clear that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats care at all about you. The GOP (Greedy Old Party) has always been known to be the enemy of the regular Joe, but we had been deluded into thinking the Democrats were the Party of the People. Wrong. If you are not among the super-wealthy, they want to kill you. Republicare, (or what some are calling DonTCare), the proposed program to replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obamacare), is essentially a gift to the insurance and pharmaceutical industries; and it’s about to kill an estimated 44,000 people a year. Nearly 30 million Americans will lose their coverage by 2019 if the ACA is repealed. Don’t get me wrong, the ACA is far from optimal for most people. Approximately 29 million are still uninsured. Many still can’t afford the astronomical monthly premiums, deductibles, and copays. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average American’s family health care plan cost $18,142 in 2016. Yet, it is still better than what the Republicans are proposing, which is essentially throwing the middle class and poor under the bus for the profits of their corporate sponsors. The disgusting part of this scenario is that there is absolutely no reason for every American not to have government-paid healthcare. If you are not already aware, every congressperson and their families’ medical...